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Premium Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929) Portrait of Mathilde Duffaud
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Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929) Portrait of Mathilde Duffaud
Mod…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 83
Description
Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929)
Portrait of Mathilde Duffaud
Model created around 1878-1879
Bronze with green patina
Signed "GEMITO" on the back
Bears the founder's stamp "CIRE PERDUE / A.A. HEBRARD".
H. 47 cm, on a base imitating an Ionic capital H. 19 cm
This portrait of Mathilde Duffaud, Gemito's mistress and muse, is a recent discovery among the Neapolitan sculptor's hitherto documented works. Le Vincezo met Mathilde in Naples in 1872. Mathilde, the wife of the French antiquarian Duhamel, was on holiday. Gémito painted her portrait and fell in love with her. The two lovers soon settled down together in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, and a few years later Mathilde followed the sculptor when he left for Paris. As well as the first terracotta bust in 1972, Gémito sculpted or drew his muse in various poses throughout their romance, which lasted until Mathilde's premature death after several years of serious illness. In an important written communication dated 30 January 2025, Jean-Loup Champion, the art historian and scientific director of the monographic exhibition, Gémito: Le sculpteur de l'âme napolitaine (Paris, Petit Palais, 15 October 2019 - 26 January 2020) dates this bust from the sculptor's stay in France, between 1877 and 1878 to be precise. In addition to the Parisian mark of the founder and dealer Adrien Hébrard, he notes a similarity between Mathilde's hairstyle and that found in the portraits drawn by Gémito in Paris at the same time. The fine portrait, dated 1877 and painted in the capital by the couple's friend Antonio Mancini, shows the sculptor's mistress in the same finery. Above all, Jean-Loup Champion points out that for this astonishing portrait, Gémito departed from the crude, uncompromising naturalism of Pescatore, which offended the critics when it was presented at the 1877 Salon. Mathilde poses more sensually, more languidly, more suggestively than in the elegant but conventional Neapolitan portrait of 1872. The sculptor's hand is broader and faster, and the brushstrokes are more sketchy, freer and more "Parisian".
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